Balancing
Commercial, Social and Cultural Objectives

Ihakara Puketapu, Chairman, Te Atiawa Runanga

Looking around this room I see we have some
authorities on this subject, anyone over the age of 50 will know what we are
talking about and all you younger ones below that age are at a disadvantage in
some respects if you havenít lived and continue to live within your own
communities, or worked for your own communities. I think thatís the essence of
it. Its unavoidable as we go through life we have to work at various things in
different places. But understanding how to bring together all those pieces in
this day and age and communities you have got to actually be part of that.

It is my
view of New Zealand society that we have a giant asset that is starting to move
and most of the people here have an involvement with Maori communities or are
Maori and come from that point of view. Iím talking about the Maori community,
itís a giant asset thatís starting to emerge and you all know that. Its like
it hasnít been asleep its been developing. What I want to look at are some of
its strengths and weaknesses.

If you take
the Maori community model it is based on place. Youíve got to have a place.
You have to belong to that place, so that if I want to work with my community I
have to belong there first. I donít have to belong there but if you
want to be successful, if you come from there if you have a tribal tradition or
hapu relationship if you belong its going to help you be successful. If you live
and work there then thatís going to make you more successful, you have to get
the trust of the people so that when they look at you its someone that has a
track record. So I am saying to the young people, you wonít have a track
record yet, youíve got to get a bit of age on you, unfortunately or
fortunately. Because that is the way we are. That is the way folklore societies,
are and Maori communities still have that strong element of folk culture. We
have been able to retain it better than most cultures in the world for a number
of good reasons, and thatís the essence of it. You come to create a management
and you bring your health, business and all the other things that we do in a
community.

The Maori
community is about sustainability, going to the next generation to the next
generation then to the next generation and so on. This has to be built into your
mission as a manager. This has to be part of the management culture. It leads
you to the point (as you get into actual projects) of saying ďWell the bottom
line on the balance sheet is break even. The bottom line is not the 50% margin
of profit or the 25%. The bottom line is ďat least I want to break even so I
can take it to the next stepĒ. So, in trying to mould together the strengths
of a community like that, which has a strong in-built - heritage of its history,
place, locality, jurisdiction etc.You have to get that built into your mission statement.If you go there, people have been managing their marae, practising their
social habits and cultural habits for generations, thatís their business, if
you want to use the business in the best sense, thatís the business.

In many
ways, its that tremendous resource that has been strengthened in New Zealand.
Some of us in the older category will say ďwell its not so strong here and
thereĒ but when you look at our young people, and the reaction to
strengthening tribal structures, as is occurring in New Zealand, nowadays the
communities are building up quite strongly, and there is a sense of confidence
which is my second point.

You have to
have confidence, people have to have confidence in you and the group that is
trying to manage. They have to have it. Not so much in the old way when we
tended to have a blind confidence, but today you have to have evidence to
encourage the people to stay with the project.

When I talk
about sustainability a lot of us have been caught up in the past years, and I
guess you talked about it here in main streaming. In terms of balancing social,
cultural and business objectives none of that can occur well unless you belong
there to that community, that you know your boundaries that the people know you
as part of a team that has the skills to respond for that community in all
facets, whether it is religion, social, cultural it is (as you would say in your
own words) holistic, its that piece that as opposed to running a business over
here for the family to make a profit, there is nothing wrong with that but once
you get into this community thing its about something else its about us Maori
people know the next life of the generation the next life of the mokopuna what
its going to be and so you have to hold to that.

Now the
threats are that most of us, particularly the younger generation, and
particularly those who are transients from their own tribal areas are almost
appendages to the mainstream, the difficulty is when you are trying to develop a
structure in a local community you can easily become an appendage to a
government or a bureaucracy and itís a reality that you have to be careful
about. Hence from time to time you hear from someone such as my elder over here
from the north screaming from Auckland, or Hone Kaa over there from Waitangi.
But its all about hey hold on a minute I want to hold my own position because I
want that position secured for what I believe in. Maori people have been doing
that for generations but it is a significant piece of leading the community to
an efficient management operation. If we look across New Zealand right now youhave hundreds of very live Maori management pieces, all over the place.
It is an exciting time, as this sort of giant thing emerges but itís also a
reaction in some ways to whatís not happening in society generally, and itís
not happening in other countries generally, they have lost the plot in terms of
some things. The plot was to build nation states in this century to build nation
states and to build them strong from the centre and we are, all of us at some
time, part of that centre if we have been a public servant at some point in
time.

We have
reached a time in New Zealand where we are better informed in our communities.
We are conscious of the forces that impact on us and in particular our young
people. We are conscious of the strengths that we have and now we have got to
begin to move, to create these new structures. In the Maori camp you have
everything from a marae committee to a trust board to a kohanga reo to a kapa
haka team,a health group you name
it weíve got it.The trick of the
trade is how we maintain that group of power houses and nurture them steadily.
Not too much in a hurry but step by step.I
think Maori people are very good at that. What Iím trying to say to those
people who are not involved be you a Maori or a Pakeha, if you are not involved
when you want to say something about Maori people where they should go, you
should stand over there with them and work in those communities and understand
that you have a range of people who have impacts on them over here, or perhaps
apathy over here, others as idealists. Somehow you have got to make some sense
out of that, and the sense will come from understanding the strengths of culture
or cultures and the strength of social practice that the people have and the
strength from being able to work from the bottom line balance sheet. You can
only create the sustainability if you go in and you take nothing more than 50%
off the budget to allow your operation to move and then you can get your
planning right. You must stay on that bottom line break even point in those
initial years and build from that.

I would
like to set up a few models.

The Maori
model of saying to itself we know who we are, we know where we want to go, we
know weíve got strengths and weaknesses and there are certainly a lot of
weaknesses among Maori groups. Diversity across our groups is enormous but there
is uniformity also, we are uniform in the sense of where we are trying to go and
if we donít do it in our generation then the next generation will do it
providing we get enough of them in the same way of thinking. That is inherent in
our culture, its inherent that we make sure our children or one or two of them
at least are going to make sure that those pegs that are in the ground are going
to stay there, so that tree can keep growing. When you look around the threat is
if you allow them to get into the modern world and they want to forget their
origins. That is the big thing we have to do in our management, pull them in and
not be worried about conflict of interest or nepotism etc. You can have fathers
and mothers and children all working together in the management team of your
locality because you will get the loyalty that you need. You need to be awake to
following very tough, hard management rules. There is no softness in that. In
the same way we deal with our rules on marae you deal with the same rules in
business, there is no difference. Thatís what Iím trying to say. You combine
this whole power force of Maoridom and we have plenty of good examples all
around this country, all emerging.

The threat
is that we do not change the way we relate to central and local government. That
is important because their cultures are different, their social practices are
different. Lets take an example. You have the Maori model, itís there, itís
an exciting thing itís unique. I donít think anyone else has got that model
in New Zealand itís an inclusive model, while itís a Maori model it
doesnít exclude other cultures or races. It says here are the rules this is
where we want to go this is where we have been and this is what we can achieve
and we know where our management strengths are where we are weak and where we
are strong and those are the messages we have to keep putting on ourselves.

Take for
example the Ministry of Education as a centralised piece. The danger again for
us is that we donít inculcate in our own people the fact that you should stop
waiting for success from a government department. Donít wait for success
because you will not get the sort of success that you expect. What you have got
in many communities particularly Maori communities and Pakeha communities is the
expectation that the government is going to fix it. Its not possible for a
government to fix it but it is very possible for communities to fix all those
social, cultural and business issues because we are on the spot and we breed the
next generations and we live there and we make our communities work.

Take the
Ministry of Education. Today it is achieving less because it is being killed off
by social problems. Itís being given resources and asked to, create policies,
Iím not defending it, Iím just saying thatís a fact an example where
itís got into the business of social improvement. Itís not in that business
anymore its in the business of academic delivery, of delivering skills that are
teaching that will teach our kids to learn better in reading maths etc. Its got
to be changed, that Ministry should be stripped of all its social
responsibilities in my view and they should go back into the communities with
the resources where there is truancy or suspensions etc. But thatís what
happens the governments keep going on and turning over more of the same. We have
got to say as a Maori community hey no its not about kura kaupapa its not about
Maori language its about individual quality. Maori language is fine like
Manuhuia Bennett over here we have been promoting that for years hey let us not
put our head in the sand. It is all about skill, skill as a human being. The
outcome of the massing together of all these nice pieces is a great human being,
a great citizen of our communities and our country. The government that we
elect, the government that we fund has got to understand now that the community
is the best place to undertake all these things that its trying to do it on a
pan-New Zealand basis in the same way as Maori used to be all pan-Maori we have
shifted, because there are only some pan things. There is one example where this
country could benefit quickly and greatly by shifting the resource with the
responsibility because communities can do it.When I say communities it is communities that have their marae and have
their kokiri, have what ever it is.

I just
wanted to emphasis that there are numerous examples in our central government
approach today that are starting to break down properly and should break down.
Health is another example, probably another catalyst for Maori and the rest of
the community. Health is the most rigorous activity in Maoridom today, the most
vigorous. We have got wonderful young people coming through and it is forcing
them back to get affiliated to their communities they will find their feet so
that 5 or 10 years out you will see a tremendous growth in this country of
leadership coming through on all fronts and the devolution of health funds to
our people is the type of thing that is recognising once you get our communities
into the game plan then you get a better game

Iím
saying things you already know, Iím just trying to give some crystalisation to
what all you people already know and talking about the subject matter, balancing
social cultural and business. It is a bit of an evolutionary thing that we are
going through. We used to think at one stage on Maori fisheries weíll have one
big Maori fisheries company now what we have learned is its not the way to do it
its probably not the way to do it even though we have one big Maori company
where we should always retain our quota and have a mechanism to make sure the
total is retained. So it is a business of uniformity and diversity for the
manager who wants to drive and develop all of these things in his local area. It
is a tough call because if you are going to, you will not have much money, you
are going to have all the jealousies and all the problems facing you, but you
have to look for your strengths in your community, look to your relatives in
your community and go forward. Its almost as if you have to get off the band
wagon and stay at home, thatís what I learnt some years ago. I gave up running
around the place and went to my own home and we are building and it has been a
blessing.

I know Hone
and them have a radio station those radio stations have been great for us
because they are more than a radio station. They put the flag up in the new
world, in the business world and the communication world for us. Thatís why I
said it wasnít about Maori language it was about that, its like kohanga reo
putting a flag up on education, putting a flag up on childcare, putting the flag
up where other people donít listen like CYPS. Weíve got networks that could
fix all that so the question that Manu would say is and heís always saying it
get back to your people and decide what you want to do in the future be guided
by the cultural perceptionsof
where you should go as a community.

I have
never seen a better time for Maori people than right now Iíve never seen a
better time for other New Zealanders to capitalise on what Maori people are
doing, they want to capitalise on it. There are some things that we have got to
be honest about, get out of our grievance mode, throw that away, never mind the
grievance mode, our old people had plenty to be grieving about but they didnít
teach us to be grievers.